Epson Extends Sarnoff's TakeCharge® ESD Solution To Its Customers

Business Wire, Nov 7, 2006

Successful Solution to Be Used for Epson Foundry Business

TOKYO & GISTEL, Belgium -- Seiko Epson (www.epson.com) and Sarnoff Europe (www.sarnoffeurope.com) today announced that Epson will expand its license agreement for Sarnoff's TakeCharge([R]) on-chip electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection IP portfolio, to enable use by its foundry business customers. Epson will use Sarnoff's TakeCharge solution to protect its foundry customers' high voltage CMOS integrated circuit (IC) products from ESD damage.

Epson, a foundry business pioneer since 1982, originally licensed Sarnoff's TakeCharge for use with its HV-CMOS IC's. Epson's success with TakeCharge in its own products resulted in a 50 percent reduction in chip input/output (I/O) area.

"Epson achieved such great results with Sarnoff's TakeCharge that we decided to extend its use to our foundry customers," said Shinya Kamiyama, General Manager of Epson's Foundry Business Division. "Thanks to Sarnoff's technology, we are pleased to provide our foundry customers with further improved ESD support and this means that we are able to get our customer's products to market cheaper and fasteraa key advantage in such a fast moving and highly competitive market."

Epson's foundry customers have access to Sarnoff's TakeCharge solutions based on their individual needs. Services include Epson delivering the solutions integrated in standard IO libraries; Sarnoff delivering the solutions in the form of custom TakeCharge Design Kits for development of custom made IO libraries and specialty IO cells; or Sarnoff delivering a "per product solution" design support service.

"We are happy that Epson's success with TakeCharge has led them to offer our solutions to their foundry customers," said Koen Verhaege, Executive Director of Sarnoff Europe. "We strive to provide the best solutions around and Epson's licensing extension tells us we are meeting and beating the industry standard, reconfirmed also by our most recent foundry breakthrough experience in advanced 65nm CMOS foundry business relationships."

TakeCharge technology is used in more than 200 high-volume production IC's by leading IC producers worldwide and includes: Toshiba, Sony, OKI, NJR, Hynix, Epson, Matsushita, Renesas, Ricoh, Infineon, Altera, PMC-Sierra, Scintera, and Sharp.

About Epson

Epson is a global leader in imaging products including printers, 3LCD projectors and small- and medium-sized LCDs. With an innovative and creative culture, Epson is dedicated to exceeding the vision and expectations of customers worldwide with products known for their superior quality, functionality, compactness and energy efficiency.

Epson is a network of 90,701 employees in 120 companies around the world, and is proud of its ongoing contributions to the global environment and to the communities in which it is located. Led by the Japan-based Seiko Epson Corp., the Group had consolidated sales of 1549.5 billion yen in fiscal 2005.

About Sarnoff Corporation

Sarnoff Corporation (www.sarnoff.com) produces innovations in electronic, video and vision technologies that generate successful new products and services for our government and commercial clients worldwide. Founded in 1942 as RCA Laboratories, Sarnoff makes continuous breakthroughs in ICs, lasers, imaging and sensing devices; biomedical diagnostics; digital TV and video for security, surveillance and entertainment; high-performance networking; and wireless communications. Sarnoff is a subsidiary of SRI International.

About Sarnoff Europe

Sarnoff Europe (www.sarnoffeurope.com) headquartered in Gistel, Belgium, is a subsidiary company of Sarnoff Corporation. Sarnoff Europe assumes worldwide responsibility for the development and commercialization of Sarnoff's TakeCharge([R]) on-chip ESD protection IP.